with a crash which startled the village. This is the history of more than one of the vast edifices which yet later on, when the lands round about were enclosed, served as quarries for the farmers' dikes; but if the devout Catholic sentiment, the profound feeling of awe and reverence which the house of God inspired, had not been wantonly disturbed, such a history could not have been written. Some of the preachers came to see that they had made an enormous mistake; Knox himself confessed, the year before his death, that the barns and "sheep-cots' for they were little betterin which public worship had been held since the demolition of the abbeys, were scandalously unfit for such a purpose. The poverty of Protestant Scot- dals; the wind blew, the rain land in sacred buildings "whose beat, and now one comely fragwalls have long been washed by ment, now another, came down the passing waves of humanity," is sufficiently accounted for by these deplorable incidents. It has recently been urged, indeed, that not only are ruins, and especially Gothic ruins, fragrant with wallflower and mantled with ivy, extremely attractive (as if Knox and his followers in casting down churches had designed merely to gratify the taste for the picturesque which a later age might develop), but that the ancient churches have suffered more from the ignorant neglect of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than from the angry iconoclasm of the sixteenth. The argument of course is in one sense valid; but in one sense only-for it must not be forgotten that the state of feeling which allowed the minsters to crumble away without remonstrance or remorse was directly due to the teaching of the Reformers. The stones in many cases may not have been actually dislodged by Knox or Glencairn; but the people had been taught that these were the synagogues of Satan in which "Baal's shaven sort" had practised their abominations; and the deserted building came to be regarded not only with pious dislike but with superstitious horror. The popular fancy associated the kirkyard where the "auld Papists" were buried with the pranks of hobgoblins and the witches' midnight revel: to the ploughman hurrying along after dark with averted eye the place became "uncanny"; and in course of time the rank growth of thistles and nettles formed a natural barrier which few cared to cross. Then came the troopers of Cromwell-as destructive in their grin deliberate fashion as Knox's passionate van To return. After the march on Edinburgh there was a pause. The iconoclastic passion had exhausted its first force; the wave had spent itself. The Congregation could not maintain the position it had taken, and was ultimately compelled to fall back, the Hamiltons upon Glasgow, Ruthven and the others upon Stirling and Perth. The Regent took advantage of the respite to fortify Leith; and Leith as a base of action for her troops, as well as a city of refuge for herself, was invaluable. The Protestant Lords, alarmed by the rapidity with which the works were pushed on, angrily demanded what she meant? Her answer was not wanting in dignity and pathos. "And like as a small bird being pursued will provide itself some nest, so her Grace could do no less in case of pursuit, but provide some sure retreat for herself and her company." Then she spoke rather bitterly of their deal One others to cast stanes at us. ings with the English Queen,— their disloyalty to their native sovereign. The Lords, however, were rude and dogged; they were not men to be touched by any graces of style or felicity of appeal; and apprehending that the peril was imminent, they again called their retainers to arms and advanced on the capital. But after several weeks' skirmishing, having failed to make any impression upon the walls of Leith, they became disheartened, their force melted away, and in spite of a sermon from Knox and an earnest appeal from Maitland (who had now joined them), they determined to return to Stirling. They had ventured some weeks before in a solemn assembly to depose the Regent ; Knox had been called in; the Old Testament had been ransacked, and the precedents duly considered. It appeared that in deposing of princes, God did not always use His immediate power, but sometimes used other means which His wisdom thought good and justice approved. "As by Asa He removed Maacha His own mother from honour and authority which before she had brooked; by Jehu He destroyed momentous to Scotland, to EngJoram and the whole posterity of Achab; by diverse others He had deposed from authority those whom before He had established by His own word." This daring act, this deliberate defiance of the sovereign authority, had at the moment been received by acclamation by the citizens of Edinburgh; but the citizens of Edinburgh were as fickle as they were fierce; and on the 6th of November the discredited allies left the capital at midnight amid the gibes and jeers of the inconstant populace. "The dispiteful tongues of the wicked railed upon us, calling us traitors and heretics; every one provoked At Stirling Knox resumed the interrupted discourse; the text was taken from the eightieth Psalm: "O God of hosts, turn us again; make Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved;" and the sermon itself rings like martial music. By its stirring and piercing eloquence, its confident appeal to the Eternal," the minds of men began wondrouslie to be erected;" and at its close a momentous resolution was taken, land, to Europe. "In the end it was concluded that William Maitland should pass to London to expone our estate and condition to the Queen and Council." Sadler was the stormy-petrel of Scottish politics, and it was of evil omen that he was again at Berwick. It was now November, and we have seen (from the Regent's letter) that during the autumn months informal communications had passed between the insurgent Lords and the English Court. Cecil was eager to take advantage of the opening; but Elizabeth hesitated. The deposition of sovereigns by their subjects was not at all to her taste. It might formation. The mere sound of his grow dangerous if it became a name drove Elizabeth wild. The habit, and the infection spread. "Monstrous Regiment of women" The moderate party in Scotland was an unpardonable affront, which had been overborne by the fanat- she had not forgotten, and which ical Calvinistic faction; and, con- she never forgave. He had made stitutionally cautious, she detested a clumsy effort to apologise; but fanaticism nearly as much as she an apology from Knox was very detested Calvinism. The Revolu- like a sound rating from another tion so far had been the handi- man; and the maladroit letter work of Knox; and Knox she which he wrote-judiciously suphated. The Congregation had pressed by Cecil-would only have shown no capacity for political increased her choler. A prophet organisation; inflated with spir- charged to announce the judgitual pride, they had been arro- ment of the Lord occupies a diffigantly confident in prosperity, cult position when he has to own and helplessly incapable in defeat. that he has made a mistake: and Were these the allies on whose it was hardly to be expected that firmness and constancy she could a retreat in such circumstances rely, these "men of butter," as should have been graciously or Alva called the Reformers? But gracefully executed. When he Cecil was urgent, and Elizabeth, told Cecil that, "being overcome "greater than man, less than wo- with iniquity"-"a traitor to God, man," caring for her safety more and worthy of hell"-"ye have than for her scruples, never al- followed the world in the way of lowed her feminine antipathies to perdition and shall taste of the override her masculine common- same cup that politic heads have sense. Sadler was the confidant drunken before you," he did not of the English Council; and, with mean to be rude; and Cecil, who anxious instructions to deal warily, could estimate prophetical warnhe was despatched to Berwick to ings at their true value, probably reconnoitre and report. did not mind. But when he was required to signify to his haughty and passionate mistress that, although "contrar to nature and without her deserving" (seeing that she had "declined from Jesus Christ in the day of His battle "), she had been raised to the throne of England, yet if she would confess that "the extraordinary dispensation of God's great mercy had made that lawful to her which both nature and God's law did deny unto all women," her authority would be provisionally admitted, the prudent Minister felt that it was time to interpose. Sadler was warned to keep the truculent prophet well out of sight. "Of all others, Knox's name, if it be not Good-man's, is most odious One initial difficulty presented itself With whom was he to treat? What envoy from an insurgent faction would be welcomed at Greenwich or Westminister? Knox was the real leader: the Lords not being ready writers, he seems at first to have conducted, under the nom de plume of Sinclair (his mother's name), nearly the whole correspondence," in twenty-four hours I have not four or five to natural rest, and ease of this wicked carcass;" but Knox was out of the question. One sometimes wishes that Elizabeth and Knox had met; the interview, it cannot be doubted, would have formed a lively, possibly a stormy, episode in the History of the Re here; and therefore I wish no the puritanic quality of his mind, mention of him hither; "1 and and the puritanic flavour of his Cecil's own impatience with these speech, were always distasteful to ill-timed admonitions found ex- her, and she sneered irreverently pression in a characteristic reply: at her faithful Secretary and "his "Maister Knox, Maister Knox! brothers in Christ." She was a Non est masculus neque foemina, bit of a pagan, and so was Maitomnes enim, ut ait Paulus, unum land; and the gallant address and sumus in Christo Jesu. Bene- gay wisdom of "the flower of the dictus vir qui confidit in Domino; wits of Scotland" were relished et erit Dominus fiducia ejus." by her to the last. Knox admits that in his mission the Secretary "travailed with no less wisdom and faithfulness than happy success;" and the Convention of Berwick-an English fleet in the Firth of Forth under Winter, an English army before Leith under Lord Grey-was the first-fruits of his diplomacy. The adhesion of Maitland changed the whole aspect of affairs. It gave the conduct of the revolutionary movement to a skilled and trained diplomatist; but it did more. So long as he remained with the Regent, it might be taken as an assurance that she had not broken with, or been deserted by, the moderate reforming party. When the Queen's Secretary, on the other hand, went over to the rebels, it was a significant declaration that French soldiers and foreign ecclesiastics had rendered a policy of conciliation hopeless. Maitland had no sympathy with either extreme; but he was forced to make his choice. Practical statesmen cannot be unduly finical. They must not cling with fastidious tenacity to what they hold to be the best. In this imperfect world it is seldom the best way that succeeds-only the second-best; and the second-best must be accepted as the line on which social and political movement of any kind is possible. Maitland, besides, was already, as I have said, a familiar figure at the English Court. He had acquired, or was to acquire, a personal ascendancy over Elizabeth which even Cecil never possessed. Elizabeth bore with Cecil because she could not help herself; but Enough has been written about the siege of Leith and the Treaty of Edinburgh; yet it is interesting to watch, from such a coign of vantage as Sadler occupied during these anxious months, the game that was being played; and I may briefly note some of the more striking incidents recorded day by day in the voluminus correspondence that has been preserved. Berwick was the point on which the roads from Newcastle, Carlisle, and Edinburgh converged; and though lying close to the turbulent Border country, its strong English garrison, as well as the easy communication it enjoyed both by land and sea, alike with England and Scotland, made it a place of the first importance, especially when war was imminent, or intrigue rife. The dull and peaceful life which Sadler and Norfolk appear to have led while the negotiations with Lethington were in progress contrasts curiously with the organised anarchy which pre This was written on the 31st October; on the 3d of November he returns to the subject," Surely I like not Knox's audacity. His writings do no good here." A more adroit envoy was obviously needed; and at this very time Lethington's services became available. vailed, and the constant strife which was being waged, outside the walls. "It is more than thirty years ago," Sadler wrote to Cecil, "since I had some understanding of this frontier, and yet did I never know it in such disorder; for now the officer spoileth the thief, and the thief robbeth the true man, and the true men take assurance of the thieves that they shall not rob them, and give them yearly rent and tribute for the same." There was much complaint of the delay and negligence of the "posts"; yet letters either from the Council at London or from the Lords at Stirling appear to have arrived daily. The fortress of Berwick was built above the Tweed, where the salt water mingles with the fresh, and commanded a wide sweep of land and sea. "This morning is past by here a great ship in which it is supposed that the Frenchman is." "I would to God ye had been more forward in time. There is passed by here eleven sails in sight, which we take to be French.” 66 Hourly we look for the arrival of the ships." "This day there is passed by here twentyseven or twenty-eight sail of ships; we are in good hope that it is the ordnance, which will much avail." "Because the way and passage through Lothian is very difficile, we have sent the Laird of Brunstone by Carlisle." "The treasure could not be carried but in carts, for which the country serveth not. This was in pence, two pence, and old Testones. For God's sake send it in gold or new silver." These slight homely touches serve to vitalise the scene: we can see the anxious envoys of Elizabeth in the chilly Border town ("Our winds here being rather winter winds than summer winds," Norfolk writes as late as 15th May) watching the white sails of the craft that crept along the coast, or the gleam of the Border spears. The spring of 1560 must have been unusually late; but 1559 had also been a backward year. On the 8th September Balnaves arrived at Berwick, when it transpired that the Reformers had been hindered by the lateness of the harvest,—as the destruction of the standing corn, which could not have been avoided in the event of a rising, would have turned the people against them. Alexander Whitelaw followed on the 29th with the information that the Congregation were unable to meet until 15th October," they could appoint no shorter day, as their harvest by reason of foul weather is far behind, and not a quarter done." The interest of the winter and spring centered in Maitland. His mission to England was regarded by Sadler and Norfolk, as well as by Randolph and Cecil, as of supreme importance. The Englishmen at Berwick had had, it must be confessed, a difficult part to play. While solemnly assuring the Regent that Elizabeth was her very good friend, they were secretly to encourage and succor the rebels. Arran was smuggled across the Border with a forged passport prepared by Cecil, in which he was described as "M. de Beaufort, a gentlemen of our good brother the French King's, sent into Scotland to our good sister the Queen Dowager." The Congregation were told that they should " devise such ways whereby they might be helped by us, and yet we to remain in peace as we do; " Sadler was to lend them money secretly, taking the bonds 1 Letters from Sadler and Norfolk, 27th Sept., 19th Dec. 1559, 7th Jan., 20th Jan., 18th April 1560. |